environmental activists demonstrate against sand mining

Das demonstrators marched, Sunday, June 11, south and north of Nantes, at the call of a collective of environmental activists to denounce the exploitation of sand for industrial purposes, noted an AFP journalist. They were 600 according to the prefecture of Loire-Atlantique, 1,500 according to the organizers.

In the morning, activists, who left Saint-Colomban (Loire-Atlantique) traveling mostly by bicycle or on tractors towards Nantes, carried out a first action of “civil disobedience”. They tore up lily of the valley plans and pipes irrigating them to replace them with seeds of buckwheat seeds. This action was aimed at denouncing the intensive use of water, explained the demonstrators.

The gendarmes were present along the convoy and the demonstration took place in peace, with a helicopter flying over the procession. According to the prefecture of Loire-Atlantique, 600 people, 450 bicycles and around thirty tractors took part in this procession.

Sand mining affects “groundwater”

The demonstration, with a procession leaving for the south and another for the north (in Héric), was launched at the call of a collective bringing together in particular Les Uprisings of the earth and La Tête dans le sable, an association fighting for the protection of this resource.

sand mining “disfigures the landscape, annihilates the bocage and deeply affects the water tables”according to a press release from the Uprisings of the Earth. “The sand of Saint-Colomban is mainly intended for the construction industry. Far from being a strictly local problem, quarries are a target of choice to bring together all those who fight against the artificialization of land, in Loire- Atlantic and elsewhere”had previously denounced the movement whose government is considering disbanding.